


When the Raven Cries

by Lady_of_Mischief



Category: Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins Movies), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Athens, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, F/M, Framed, Greece, Hannibal - Freeform, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Ireland, Italy, Murder, Murder Mystery, Plane, Rome - Freeform, Spain, Twisted Romance, missing memories, post hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26853337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_Mischief/pseuds/Lady_of_Mischief
Summary: Clarice Starling is dead, and in her wake is a young women by the name of Verena Vale. She is brighter and better trained than Starling ever was. Mason Verger has tracked Hannibal Lecter to Italy. Jack Crawford and Mason Verger offer information she needs, but only if she can successfully bring the Doctor back. What happens when Dr. Lecter can give her even more information?
Relationships: Hannibal Lecter & Clarice Starling, Hannibal Lecter/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	When the Raven Cries

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for a while, it's like the love child of all my fics since i come here to chill and work on this slowly. So, I'm happy to finally introduce you to this story  
> Enjoy!

Verena Vale suffers from a condition called Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI for short. The long term effects of this condition vary widely, and while she does not have all of them, she is affected by some of them.  
Despite her difficulties and trials with her condition, she did not let it stop her from doing what she wanted. At twenty-seven, she graduated with a PsyD from college. At the age of thirty, she applied to become an FBI agent; she was accepted and quickly rose to the top of her class.  
The FBI just as quickly rose to value her; she was their best asset. Perhaps even better than their renowned serial catcher, Clarice Starling. What a catch this Dr. Vale, far more beautiful (more exotic looking really), far more intelligent, and was willing to kiss their ass.  
She graduated from the FBI academy two days after her thirty-first birthday. Of course, that would be the day that Krendler would make an advance towards her; now that she was a new agent, no one would believe her. She had turned him down, politely, of course, and yet that still irritated him. He would see to it that she would never make leaps and bounds in her career, and while he was planning her demise, she was preparing his.  
She filed a complaint and soon would have more complaints from other women and many more for herself. She was orchestrating his downfall.  
They celebrated the only way the FBI knew how to celebrate cheap food and cheap booze. That wasn’t her style, no, in fact, she had refined her taste to the finer things in life, and now she could afford it.  
She treated herself to the finest Italian restaurant in town. She chose solitude over socialization, more comfortable to avoid questions than to answer them.  
She met Special Agent Starling, just once, right before she graduated. Dr. Vale asked if she would like to meet with anyone before she graduated to get some advice going into her field choice. She had asked to be able to speak to Clarice Starling.  
Clarice was like a thunderstorm, suddenly there one minute and gone the next. She came and left with a loud crash, like a whip's sound and a bright flash, and she left just the same way. Her hair was mahogany,0 more brown then red most times, but still red. Her eyes were such a stark and frightening shade of blue; they bore right into your soul.  
Yet somehow, Dr. Vale wasn’t the least bit scared of her. She saw an ally.  
“Dr. Vale, is it?” She says, leading this young woman into her office and closing the door behind him. “Please sit.” She says, motioning to a chair 0across from her desk. Her office was bare, plain white, and almost new looking. There were no personal effects, no pictures, no mugs, just a notebook and pen, and files, and her computer, of course. She was in the broadest sense, alone. No family, at least immediate, and no one close to her either. She was married to her work.  
“Yes, ma’am.” She plopped down into the chair, and Clarice followed suit.  
“Please, it’s just Clarice.” She forces a small, courteous smile. She wasn’t comfortable around others, and the question was why. What had happened to her that made her so uneasy?  
“Understood. I wanted to ask you a few things about-“  
“Hannibal Lecter? Yes, everyone asks that, but before we get there, is there anything else you will want to ask me?” Direct, yet terrified, she seemed almost to be waiting for something horrific to happen.  
“Yes, What would you say the hardest part of your job was?” Clarice liked her, perhaps she was a little naïve since Krendler hadn’t been bold yet, but she had time to learn the workings.  
“Besides the paperwork and tedious recounts of raids and shootings?” She pauses, and Dr. Vale has learned the patience of waiting. If you wait long enough, you can more answers from people. They get uncomfortable and feel a need to fill the silence, meaning they will talk. “You have to deal with others looking down on you simply for being a woman, and Krendler will make an advance towards you. If you deny him, you will go nowhere with your career.”  
“Did you not get a break with your involvement on the Buffalo Bill case?” Starling pushed a quick puff of air through her nose, her equivalent to a snort.  
“I did at first, but when Krendlar rose to ‘claim the throne,’ he made my life and career choice a living hell.” She leans back in her chair and observes the recruit in front of her.  
“Then what would you say is the best part?”  
“As a woman, people underestimate you. When you do something that shocks them, there is a tiny bit of satisfaction. Proving that you are more than just a pretty face is a reward all on its own”  
“So I should expect to go through the wringer and to be underestimated. Yet, I should revel in the fact that I can shock people and prove them wrong?”  
“I suppose I should warn you that the road ahead will be one of the most difficult you may ever have to face. I do hope you are ready." Clarice says, letting the silence then fall between them. She had work to do and had to final the touches of paperwork for her raid tomorrow. That raid could end up a doozy if she weren’t careful about it.  
Verena stood up, collecting her few folders and the notebook and pen she brought in. She knew when a conversation was made, and this was beyond over now. “I wish you luck on your raid tomorrow Agent Sterling. I know just how trivial they can be.” Clarice nods, and Verena leaves.  
The following day, Clarice died in the raid, and a week later was her funeral. Dr. Vale attended.  
The oddest thing about Agent Starling’s funeral was a single lone man. He was in a wheelchair, and around the young man accompanied him. The man in the wheelchair had his face wholly deformed, or what was *left* of his face anyways.  
He caught Dr. Vale’ gaze and gave her a brief smile; she gave an even more polite nod of acknowledgment.  
Crawford sat at the front; apparently, the two of them were close. Rumor had it they fancied each other; after all, they worked on the Buffalo Bill case together. He did tell Sterling how to approach Hannibal and not to let him now personal information. He was there for her throughout most, if not all, of her career.  
Crawford seemed actually to care that she was dead; he was crying after all.  
The funeral proceeded without any complications. For some reason, she felt as though someone was watching her, or rather the funeral from a distance.  
Yet, as she looked around, she never saw anyone: no strange shadows or figures, nothing.  
Then, something settled deep within her stomach, perhaps *he* was watching. Was it possible that Hannibal Lecter somehow managed to get to the states unnoticed? Then attended the funeral from a distance where no one could see him?  
Paranoia, she told herself. Hannibal's face was too well known for someone not to have spotted him. She was just paranoid; that’s all it is.  
The funeral was over, and Former Special Agent Clarice Sterling had been dropped into the ground.  
Crawford had somehow found his way to Dr. Vale; she was, after all, coming to work for him, so he might as well introduce himself now.  
“Dr. Vale, I’m Agent Crawford, I hear you’re coming to work for me.” Dr. Vale gives a polite smile and nod.  
“Yes, sir, you’d be correct.”  
“Good.” He studies her. “I heard you talked with Agent Sterling yesterday. How did that go?”  
“Yes, Sir. I did. She was polite, somewhat friendly. I admired her. Her hard work on the cases she was assigned to was quite astounding.”  
“Indeed.” A pause. “I saw you were looking at Mr. Verger, any reason why?”  
“Oh, no, Sir, I just have never seen him around before. But I must ask, what does a multi-billionaire have to do with Agent Sterling?”  
“What indeed, Dr. Vale, what indeed.”  
“Sir?” What has he suggested was Verger here because he was looking to hire Sterling for a case, or perhaps it's something more sinister and far more perverted than she could think.  
“I have an assignment for you, Dr. Vale, and to be completely honest, you’re the only one in this entire facility who would be capable of handling it.” something catches his attention, and his head snaps to the right, she follows his gaze. It was a tree branch that had begun to rock as a breeze swept through.  
“Can we discuss the assignment here, or would it be better discussed someplace else?”  
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow morning when I see your bright eyes and bushy tail. In the meantime, Dr. Vale, Enjoy your evening.” Crawford walks away, he seemed distressed, to say the least, and there was something he wasn’t telling her  
All of a sudden Black limo drove up next to doctor Vale. The driver rolled down one of the windows, and she looked into it and saw multi-millionaire Mason Verger staring right back at her. “Doctor Vale, I have a proposition for you if you would like… It's about the infamous serial killer Hannibal the cannibal Lecter. Enter  
“Thank you, Mr. Verger, but my work is to the FBI and the FBI alone.”  
“Ah, I see Jack hasn't updated you on what exactly happens in the FBI, has he?”  
“No, Sir, I don't start working with him until tomorrow.”  
“Indeed, say why don't you start working with him now we will pick him up on the way he should still be here in the ceremony somewhere, I'm sure.”  
“Mr. Verger, I'd like to start my day off with the FBI on the right foot and not taking underhanded cases without them knowing…”  
“Trust me. Jack Crawford knows all about this case, and you want to be on it.” Hesitantly, she makes her way towards the limo and opens it climbing inside to face Mr. Verger.  
“Much better now, see?” He turns his attention to his driver. “Cordell find Jack Crawford for me at once, won’t you?”  
“Yes, Sir.” The driver drives away, and you can see Jack Crawford walking up the street, and he turns to look at the car, and you can see his red eyes tear for Clarice. Once the limo comes to a stop, Crawford knows exactly what's waiting for him on the other side. He's spoken to Verger several times; he knows exactly what's about to happen. He's about to offer up a case.  
“Mr. Verger, you've commandeered my recruit.”  
“Well, you know me.” He gives with a slight chuckle in what appeared to be a wink. Crawford chuckles slightly back at him.  
“Indeed, I do, Mr. Verger.”  
“Great.” Mr. Verger says, drawing out the ‘r’ in great. “Let's get down to business, shall we?”  
“I take it you have a case for us today, Mr. Verger?”  
“Of course, I do, don’t I always get you the good ones, Jack?”  
“Indeed, you do. What is the case this time?”  
“Nothing either of you two isn't familiar with.” Verena looks to Verger, and her eyes go wide and what he insinuates at his statement. She hadn't even been in the actual FBI for a year, and she was already familiar with the case? Mason Verger turns his attention to her noticing that she is put off by his wording, realizing that she has no idea of her past with the infamous Hannibal Lecter  
“Doctor Vale. Tell me, do you know who I am?”  
“Yes, Sir. You are one of the biggest baking companies globally, and you're a multi-millionaire from it.”  
“You know What I do, but you don't know how I got this face, do you?”  
“No, Sir. I believe it is rather rude to ask.”  
“You see, back when Hannibal Lecter what still doctor Lecter, I was one of his victims. I was one of his only victims to have ever survived. And now I have received word, but he currently resides in Italy.” Mason Verger pauses, waiting for a reaction from either Crawford or doctor Vale.  
“Which has to do with us how?” Verena says, and Mason Verger gives the slightest smile he could get with his deformed face, and to be completely honest, it was more creepy and anything else or anything doctor Vale ever seen.  
“I see you haven't shared the info.”  
“Mr. Verger, you know those files are sealed, and I cannot even access those.”  
“Yes, that is why I hired someone to pull those files.”  
“Excuse me, Mr. Crawford,” A pause. “But may I ask what this is about? What files are these in reference to?”  
“Vale, we cannot reveal the files we're talking about. But what I can tell you is that they do involve Hannibal Lecter.”  
“You see, doctor Vale, I am fortunate enough to be in a plethora of money hire the right person with the right skill set, you could set up the Rockets in Russia, or you could become president. But for me, I've chosen to do in my spare time, hunt down Hannibal Lecter, and bring him to justice.”  
“Pardon me, Mr. Verger,” Verena starts, her voice timid, dripping with fear.  
“Pardon me, Mason,” she gives a half-smile, uncomfortable with the name on her tongue. “But tracking down Hannibal Lecter has proven impossible on more than one account.”  
“Yes, but I am rich, and I know what I'm looking for.” There is a long pregnant pause as Doctor Vale and Mason Verger stare at each other, waiting for each other to make the next sound, to form the following sentence, and finally, Mason Verger talks first. “And you see, you knew what you were looking for once too.”  
“I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking about.”  
“Mr. Verger, I cannot allow you to tell her those details.” Crawford chimes in.  
“I won't tell if you won't tell…” Mason Verger eggs him on. Crawford looks at him with suspicion, like Mason Verger had something far more sinister planned up his sleeve, and Crawford saw it. Crawford knew it. But you can't hold someone accountable for something they haven't done yet. But this was the only way to keep a close eye on Mason Verger, the multi-millionaire. And frankly, that's what the FBI had asked him to do to make sure that had he found Hannibal, the “cannibal,” Hannibal Lecter would be turned over to the proper authorities to go on trial and receive the death sentence.  
Crawford had worked on many cases with Mason Verger involving Hannibal after the Buffalo Bill case. Yet most cases they had worked on led to false leads, red hearings, nothing came from them, but apparently, there was one lead that Mason Verger seemed to have had some luck with; that's why they were here after all. That's how Mason Verger knew Hannibal Lecter was in Italy.  
“Vale, I need you to be aware that I have advised against you engaging in this conversation any further than it has already gone on as the information you are about to receive is not your security clearance level can you do and you are not authorized to receive the following information,” Crawford says.  
“Come on, Jack,” Mr. Verger says. “If you lost your memories, wouldn't you want those back?” Crawford says nothing and looks to Vale and then back to Mason.  
“Are you talking about the six months that I don't remember when I was 18?” She perks up, suddenly much more interested in the conversation than before.  
“Atta girl, you are smart.” Mason Verger says.  
“Are those the files you're talking about?” She says, turning to look to Crawford Crawford, nods at her Psalm in his eyes. He knew that what she was about to find out could be life-altering and change her for the worse.  
“Verena, I have your entire file of what happened fully documented right down to the time you change and go to the bathroom those six months.” Mason smiles or rather tries to, given there wasn’t much left of his face.  
“How do I know you're not making this up?” Mason Verger holds up a file that had the FBI seal on it. The final clearly didn't belong to him, and evidently, it was still sealed.  
“Of course, I already know what it says in the file.”  
“How, if it's unopened?”  
“Let’s just say there are two copies.”  
“Why do you have that file? Why is there a file even on me in the FBI database?”  
“Yes, back to the point at hand, I see. Doctor Vale gives a slight nod. Well, I need doctor Lecter you know, he has a price to pay for what he did to me. I need you to find him.”  
“I don't even know where to start.”  
“Fortunately for me, I have just enough info to get you started, and if you hand over Hannibal Lecter to me once you've brought him home, I will give you this file, and you will know everything you ever needed to know about your missing memories.”  
“Hannibal Lecter should be turned into the proper authorities.”  
“He will be after I've given him a piece of my mind, per se.”  
“Tell me something in that file that I know I can trust.”  
“I'm sure everyone in this car already knows this, but you had enough money saved up for three months in Greece. You stayed in Athens in a small little hotel that didn't provide breakfast or have a fridge or have anything really but a bed.  
From there, down the street was a bar called Chronos. You frequented that bar. You even became a regular, and then you met someone he was kind enough to let you stay with him once you guys got to know each other.” There's a long pregnant pause doctor Vale stares back into Mason Verger's eyes, her green ones piercing into his almost black. Is that enough, or should I keep going?” Doctor Vale snot at her head, not knowing what to say because she'd been told those she hadn't even really told anyone. When people asked her what she did remember, she never answered honestly because. Sometimes, she didn't know if they were dreams that she had made up, or if they were actual memories.  
“No, Mason, that will do just fine, thank you. Vale, you don’t have to take this case-“  
“On the contrary, Jack, she’s one of the only two people capable of bringing in Hannibal Lecter on. The first option is buried 6 feet under. She has to take this case.” Everyone looks to her, and she looks to her hands. If she could pull this stunt off, it could be the most significant case of the century. How could she refuse?  
There was the fact of the matter that was more pressing at hand. She was familiar with the cannibal himself, and Mason had been forcing her to read between the lines. Which lead her to believe she knew Lecter personally.  
Her lungs shakily fil with air, and then she speaks. “If you truly want me on this case, fine, I’ll do it.”  
“Good,” Mason purs. “See Jack, all it-“ She glares at Mason and cuts him off.  
“But,” She practically barks. “You have to answer a few questions for me.”  
“Well, Dr. Vale, that depends entirely upon-“ Crawford tries.  
“No! Either you answer them, or you find someone else to take this, but I’ve got a feeling you’re hard-pressed to find anyone else.” A single bead of sweat trails down Crawford’s forehead, and he quickly wiped it away. He was thinking hard about her request. He knew he needed her; there was no one else for this job. It had to be her.  
He sighs, “You may ask three questions, and only three. We will reveal all details pertaining to that question and only the question. So, choose them carefully.” Verena gives a brief half-smile.  
”Do we have a deal?” Mason asks.


End file.
